Abstract Extractive distillation was used to separate methanol-benzene azeotropic mixture. First, chlorobenzene was chosen as the solvent through the UNIFAC group contribution method and empirical data. The calculation of vapor-liquid equilibrium using UNIFAC model for methanol-benzene system with chlorobenzene under atmospheric pressure was performed. The calculation results agreed well with the experimental data. In order to investigate the effectiveness of the solvent, the batch extractive distillation experiments were carried out. The results showed that chlorobenzene could eliminate the azeotropic point of methanol-benzene system. The batch extraction distillation was carried out in a packed column of 30 theoretical plates, 4 theoretical plates in the recovery section. With the reflux ratio of 3 and the solvent mass ratio of 1, the recovery rate of product reaches 98%, which revealed that the extractive distillation with chlorobenzene as solvent was useful in the separation of methanolbenzene system. Finally, Aspen Plus were used to simulate the continuous distillation process. Effects of reflux ratio, solvent flowrate on the product purity were analyzed to get the optimal operation parameters. These results can provide some reference for the industrial production.
GAO Xing-Na, BAI Peng, XU Xian-Shuo.Separation of Methanol-Benzene Binary by Extractive Distillation[J] Chemcial Industry and Engineering, 2014,V31(2): 43-47
2014, Vol. 31 
